"Me Time"

After waking up early with BabyBoy, making him breakfast, and playing for a couple hours, Hubby crawled out of bed.  We took the boy to the zoo for a run in the crappy weather (That sounds like we're taking the dog to the off-leash park, which is kind of exactly how it is).  After the zoo visit, we got some lunch, and I put him down for his nap.

I emptied the dishwasher, setting out bottles, sippy cups, and child plates to air dry, loaded the dirty dishes in, and asked for some "me time" to go to a craft fair at Seattle Center.  A particular vendor was there, and I wanted to take advantage of the show discount to stock up on soap for the shower.  Hubby agreed, and went downstairs to take a nap while BabyBoy slept.

After the craft show, I was walking back to my car in the rain.  I saw an older lady, skipping hand in hand with a young girl who was wearing and elaborate feathered mardi gras mask and a tutu.  They were skipping right through the cross walk, in the pouring down rain.  I wished that my eyes were a camera so I could save that image to share here.  Unfortunately, I can't translate an image from my head to the computer, so this will have to capture the mood.

My first thought was "sometimes I wish I had a little girl", my next thought was "I hope I can still skip when I have a grandchild."  Lastly, I thought "I want to skip with my son in the rain." 

Frivolous part of "me time" was done, so I made the practical trip to the grocery store.  Milk, Toilet paper, food for dinner, and a few other staples for the house were all on the list.  When I got to the checkout stand, I handed the checker my bags.  I had an Oscar the Grouch bag, and a Thomas and Friends bag that happened to be in my car, so that's what I brought in with me. Apparently, I was also wearing my "please poke fun at me" face.  The checker inclined his head toward my bags of groceries and said "You don't get out much, do you?".  He was right, I don't.  I laughed a little ruefully and said "What was your first clue?"  He said "We don't get a lot of Thomas bags on Lower Queen Anne."

When I got home, the dishwasher had finished it's cycle, and the sink was full of dirty dishes.  There was a bag of garbage blocking the door to get into the house, so I took it out to the garbage cans before I could get in, put away the groceries, unload the dishwasher and put the dirty dishes into the machine for the next load.  Hubby and BabyBoy were in the living room, sitting in the middle of a pile of toys, and watching "How to Train Your Dragon" for the third time in 24 hours.  All nice thoughts from 90 minutes to myself were completely washed out of my head by internal grumbling about delayed chores.

I want to skip in the rain, holding hands with my son.  I'm going to hold onto that for tonight.

Rapidly fraying rope

I am at the end of a rapidly fraying rope - it's the one that connects to my deep inner core of strength, and it's not going to hold up.

Monday was MRI day, Tuesday included rhuematologist, infusion therapy, gyn annual visit and chemo drugs. The infusion or the chemo either one would knock me on my ass for 1-2 days separately. The two together have not been treating me well. Today included work panic, primary care visit, and a new ankle brace, all while fighting the urge to throw up in a corner before finding a quiet place to lay down.

I put z to bed around 7:45, and he went down easily, except his reactive airway cough started acting up. Two coughs, 10-15 seconds, 2 coughs, lather, rinse, repeat. I woke him up to give him an albuterol inhaler, which made him very upset. We lay him back down and gave it an hour, no change. SO we got dressed and went to children's hospital.

It's not asthma, his lungs are totally clear and his pulse oxygen levels are strong. He's just.... Coughing. We're under instructions to give him two puffs of inhaler every 4 hours for the next 24 hours. Gotta stay awake until 2 to give him that dose. And here's pro tip #3, it is impossible to give a child an inhaled medication without waking the child.

I want my boy to be feeling better, number one priority. But I sure would like to have the luxury of taking the kind of care of myself that I need to shake the treatment hangover.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad. Fueled by coffee.

Are you mom enough?

Dear Time Magazine:

It hasn't been a great week in motherhood for me.  You see, I have a chronic and degenerative disease that impacts my life every day.  Some days, I just deal with the fact that I live in a cocoon of pain, and other days I get lost in it.  This week, I have been devoured by the pain in my own body, and that's not left a lot to give anyone else; this includes my husband, my son, my job, and my own sanity. 

Yesterday, I was scheduled for an intravenous medication infusion to treat this disease.  I fought my way up the stairs, carrying my son, while biting my lip and praying under my breath that my knees would hold out to get him to the top of the stairs without dropping him.  He's 18 months old, and is really pushing to find his own boundaries in this world.  He has no real concept of how to manage his own emotions, and has been having flares of temper and frustration that come out like tantrums.  It was just one of those mornings where he wanted to push at the limits.  While I was changing his diaper, he stuck one hand in his own mess and planted it on my chest.

I burst into tears.  I lost my temper.  I yelled at him, saying,  "JUST LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE."  I took my shirt off and threw it on the ground, cleaned up his hands, and cried through changing his diaper.   Then I put him in his crib and I walked into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and put my head in my hands and sobbed.  He cried from his crib, and I cried in my hands, and I said to myself "I AM A HORRIBLE MOTHER."  At that moment, I hated him for not cooperating.  And I hated myself for not being able to deal with this new phase.  I hated the pain in my body, and I hated that I have no control over it.

After I calmed down a little, I went and got him.  I hugged him and said "I love you, I'm sorry" over and over.  I got him dressed for school and let him play in his room a bit while I finished getting ready.  It was Daddy's day to take BabyBoy to school, and I walked them to the door.  BabyBoy put both hands on my cheeks and offered up his face for a kiss. 

"Baaah-Bye Mama!", he said, cheerfully.  I started crying again.  "Jesus, what is WRONG with you?", my husband asked.

"I"m a horrible mom.  I don't deserve him being so sweet to me when I lost my temper and yelled at him and, and..." words turned into sobs as I leaned my head against his shoulder.  Hubby patted me and said "I can't do anything about this right now, you're not a horrible mom, but we have to go."

I waved goodbye, and sat on the couch to cry some more.  I finally pulled myself together and got in the car, to hear a discussion about your latest cover story "Are you Mom enough?" about attachment parenting, breast feeding, and complete with an incendiary cover photo of a three year old standing on a stool, breastfeeding from a cute, young mom in skinny jeans.

Thank goodness, Alien Mom is Mom Enough.

If I had to classify myself as a mother, I would say yes, I am a believer in attachment parenting.  But here's the thing, my body, my disease did not allow me to be the kind of attachment parent I wanted to be.  I couldn't wear my son in a sling because I have 4 vertebra that are fused together from degeneration caused by arthritis in my back.  I wanted to breast feed him until he self- weaned, but I couldn't because I had to wean him at 4 months in order to go back on medication that would at least prevent further damage from occurring, even though it can't give me back mobility or pain-free movement.  Each time I've had to make a decision that's prioritized my own health and longer term prospects ABOVE the way I want to mother my son, I've gone through a period of beating myself up over it.

Basically, my first reaction is to say, "Hey, fuck you Time magazine.  Who are you to call me into question?  Who are you to put me and my decisions up against other mothers and make it some sort of competition?"

After a good nights sleep, and the beginnings of some pain relief after yesterdays treatment, I'm still pretty mad at you.  Even without extenuating circumstances (And let's face it, we all have extenuating circumstances), being a mother is really hard work. 

Instead I will say, "You know what, Time magazine?  I'm not perfect, but I'm doing the best I can.  I fuck up on a regular basis, but my little boy still kisses me and smiles and it's like Christmas morning.  I can't carry him in a sling, but I can teach him to be strong and to stand up.  I can't nourish him from my body, but I can teach him to be loving and care for others.  And I can support my sister-mothers through their own struggles."

So, in answer to your question, Yes.  I am MORE than enough, in my own way. 

Sincerely,

Not Perfect

P.S. - Fuck you, Time Magazine

He WHAT?!?!

Last Sunday, I was putting away laundry upstairs while Hubby and BabyBoy were downstairs.  I heard a THUD, followed by a wailing cry from BabyBoy and hubby called out for me to hurry downstairs.

I rushed down the staircase (Somehow managing to NOT brain myself on the low ceiling on the way down) to find my son, bleeding profusely from his toe, with a cordless drill on the ground and the power pack for the drill  to the side.  Hubby was holding the boy, trying to comfort him.  The minute BabyBoy saw me, he cried "MAAAAMAAAAA!" and reached for me.

I scooped him up, and put pressure on his bleeding toe.  "What HAPPENED?"

"Well, he somehow managed to disconnect the battery pack from the cordless drill and dropped it on his toe." Hubby replied.

"What the FUCK was he doing with the cordless drill in the first place?" I hissed in reply.

"Well, he wanted it.", he explained rather lamely.

"I've asked for a pony every year for my birthday since I could TALK and I don't have one yet.  You don't give him everything he WANTS!"

Complete tone of voice shift,  "Let Mama see, sweetie, let me see your toe." BabyBoy was already calming down from the nearness of the familiar.  While it was bleeding a lot, it didn't seem to be fatal.  The weird hoof-like edge of his big toe nail was gone, and there was a small cut at the end of the toe, but he was tolerating pressure well, it wasn't bruising, and I could wiggle it with no pain response from him.

"Particularly not POWER TOOLS!" I turned my back, shaking my head.  How is this something I need to explain to another adult?

"I don't think it's broken.  We'll see how he walks when he's calm enough to try." I sat down in the rocking chair and snuggled my baby close.  We've had a relatively small number of accidents that make him bleed - I can only think of one toenail trim gone awry in the first week, and once where he sat down hard and bit his lip.  This was definitely our first 'stupid accident, baby got hurt' experience.

Hubby came over with tears in his eyes "I didn't think he'd get hurt.  I feel bad he hurt himself."

"He's ok.  I know we need to let him explore.  You didn't mean for him to get hurt.  He's ok."  I was reassuring us both out loud.  I needed to NOT continue to beat Hubby up about it, he needed to hear BabyBoy was ok, all three of us needed to calm down and breathe for a minute.

I fashioned a spectacular end-of-toe bandage out of cut down gauze pad and medical tape, and there are no apparent long-lasting ill effects.  It will be interesting to see how his weird toenail part grows out, but since it hit the tip and not the nail bed, I'm hopeful he won't have an odd-ball big toe for the rest of his life.  In the meantime, power tools get put away when we're done using them, instead of left on the floor.

Now.  Where's my fucking pony?

Thanks for your opinion, asshole.

Techinically, this should be a mommy blog post, but since I included "Asshole" in the title, and fully expect to exceed my unofficial "fuck's per page" (FPP) limit for that blog, I decided this is better suited for 'Still an Adult'.

Last week a friend shared that a mutual friend had maligned decisions I've made as a parent in regards to Babyboy's sleep schedule and sleep patterns.  I'll admit, 'malign' is probably a harsh word to assign to it, but it surely felt like it was said with that intent.  I'm sensitive about myself as a parent - I feel like I'm in this with no instruction manual, no feedback other than people sharing their personal opinions, and every decision I make is met with my own internal dialogue questioning the decision, as well as "are you sure?"'s from my husband, friends, well-meaning people on facebook, etc. I'm already prone to second guessing myself - I don't need commentary from the peanut gallery reinforcing that.

When I heard this criticism, I sort of lost my shit.  Here's the thing I've learned.  Every baby is different, and no one, no matter how well meaning, knows that baby as well as his or her own parents.  Decisions are made based on that personal knowledge of your child, and personal knowledge of your own family dynamic and those two things are weighed against the options, and you decide how to move forward that works best for those people actually involved.

It's true.  We have not done sleep training with BabyBoy.  We choose to take him out to dinner on a regular basis, and sometimes we even (GASP) MISS BEDTIME because of that.  It's our decision to make, and we're pretty lucky that our little guy rolls with it.  We're also lucky that our friends have been accomodating of earlier meeting times to try and keep bedtime in mind.  As a parent, you may have different priorities that work for your family dynamic, and that's fine.  But don't fucking hold up my decision as the wrong decision and use that to justify what works for you.  Grow a set of balls and say "thanks for the invite, but that doesn't work for us.", not "We don't agree with how Hubby & Rae do it."

I'm a good parent.  My little boy is happy, healthy, and well adjusted.  You're a good parent too.  Your child is happy, healthy and well adjusted. Congratulations to both of us!

Now keep your fucking opinions to yourself.